At least 25 city homes slated for demolition after floods

One home in Bowness that was at risk of collapsing after the June flood has already been demolished, as the city deemed it to be a safety risk.Photo by
Calgary Herald/Files

Calgary’s chief building inspector says 25 homeowners have applied to have their houses torn down in the wake of the floods, and seven demolition permits have already been granted.

As Calgarians continue to assess how badly their residences were hit by the flood water, several have decided not to rebuild, said Marco Civitarese.

“There’s lots of reasons why owners have come in saying why they want to demolish, some for the simple fact of redeveloping, some for the simple fact of cost implications and some that just felt it might be worth more torn down,” he said.

Homeowners need a demolition permit and must ensure all services are turned off, including electrical, gas and water. Further, some of the houses may also require asbestos abatement.

The demolition applications came from some of the hardest-hit neighbourhoods, including Bowness and Erlton.

At least one home has already been torn down at the direction of the city. The Bowness home, which was razed soon after the waters began to recede in early July, had a four-to six-metre sinkhole beneath it, and had about a third of its brick foundation missing.

That home was near collapse and the city ordered it to come down for public safety reasons, said Civitarese.

The 25 demolition applications represent just a small portion of the roughly 3,000 Calgary homes affected by the floods. Unless the homes pose a danger to the public, the city is leaving it up to the homeowner to decide whether to tear down and rebuild, said Civitarese.

“Of course, to remediate it, it costs quite a bit of money to fix some of these places up,” he said.

“That’s a choice the owner has to make at the end of the day.”

Ald. Dale Hodges, whose ward includes hard-hit Bowness, said he wouldn’t be surprised to see more houses brought down in the community but he hasn’t yet been made aware of demolition applications.

“It’s kind of distressing to see what were once perfectly good houses in bad shape,” he said.

The number of homes elsewhere in the province facing demolition remains unclear.

A spokeswoman for the province’s flood recovery task force said the province is still compiling that number.

According to Rick Fraser, the associate minister of recovery and reconstruction for High River, officials are assessing whether homes in the southern Alberta community will need to be demolished, but none have been brought down yet.

Old asbestos or new mould creeping into the homes from the flood water further complicates any demolition, he said.

“It’s critical for people to understand that if it’s mould or asbestos, you can’t just demolish your home,” said Fraser.

“All that stuff needs to be taken out from an environmental standpoint first. Once that’s done, we can bring down the home in a safe manner.”

During the course of the flood and recovery, Alberta Health Services worked with High River officials to survey the worst hit communities.

The authority deemed 448 homes as not fit for habitation — requiring professional remediation before the occupants can return, said AHS spokeswoman Shannon Evans.

The homes are now being reassessed to see how many are fit for people to live in again once they’ve been fixed up, she said.

So far, 35 of the 448 homes have had the not-fit-for-habitation assessment lifted, said Evans.

“Assessments continue to proceed, as remediation is completed,” she said.

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